


Goes Marching

by whetherwoman



Category: To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Genre: Civil Rights Movement, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Original Characters - Freeform, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, historical figures, recipient:Venus Inferred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 04:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whetherwoman/pseuds/whetherwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1965, the issues that affected Scout's childhood are now affecting her children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goes Marching

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you thank you thank you to acolourclear for betaing, voksen for cheerleading liek whoa, and Livia for making me write those paragraphs it really did need.

Jean hums to herself a little as she clears away the last remains of dessert. The March wind whistles outside, but the kitchen is warm and still full of the smell of pecan pie. Jean dries her hands and goes into the living room. She smiles as wild giggles drift in from the bedroom where her husband is probably telling the girls some shenanigans from the newspaper office as a bedtime story. Jean turns on the television and settles herself on the couch. She smooths her hand over the floral pattern, well-used but still bright.

The newscaster's voice catches her attention. "And now, the evening news. Protesters in Selma are still fighting for approval of their plans to march to Montgomery. Footage of the previous attempt has rocked the nation..."

They're showing the same images they've been showing for days now, horrifying video of unresisting protesters clubbed again and again. Jean folds her hands tightly together, thinking it should get easier, she should be numb by now. It just seems to hit her harder every time. She flinches as each man falls, but can't look away. She remembers being told, once, that injustice had happened before and would happen again, and when it did only children would weep. She doesn't weep tonight, and her husband is tucking her girls safely into bed.

"This again?" her husband grumbles as he sits down beside her. "Seems there's been nothing else going on in the world for the last week."

As she's about to answer, the telephone rings. Jean turns down the television and pats her husband's hand on the couch beside her before she goes into the kitchen to pick it up.

"Hello, Mother," a cheerful voice crackles on the other end of the line.

"Charlie!" Jean exclaims with pleasure, beckoning her husband over. "Why aren't you studying, honey? I'm so glad you called, I've been worried stiff about all these riots and marches and beatings on the television—you're all right, aren't you? You're—you're not calling because something's happened?" She gropes for the counter to steady herself.

"No, Ma, I'm fine, honest." She can hear the reassuring smile in Charlie's voice, even through the crackle of distance. "Now don't get upset, you know I'd tell you if something was wrong."

"Yes—yes, of course you would." Jean takes a steadying breath as her husband reaches for her hand with a frown. She smiles at him, aiming for reassuring and probably hitting hesitant. She shakes herself and turns back to the phone. "It's just the times, you know, everything going on and you gone at college barely half a year now, and—well, I worry."

"I know, Ma," Charlie laughs. "I wouldn't believe it if you didn't. But listen, Ma—I'm fine, I promise, but you need to listen to me a minute."

"Of course," Jean says, clutching her husband's hand a little tighter.

"I wanted to tell you—I'm going down to Selma to join the march."

Jean feels the blood drain from her face. "You—"

"Now, Ma—Ma—don't be like that, don't," Charlie pleads. His voice sounds tinny and small.

On the television, men are falling, covering their heads with their arms. Jean can't help but see other images: a man sitting under a single lamp with a newspaper, pushing his hat back on his head as a faceless mob gathers around him; twelve men in a courthouse, looking at the floor as a single word echoes twelve times; the sound of a sickening crack and a boy's shrill scream—and scenes she never saw herself but which made as strong an impression: a woman falling to the ground as if crushed by a giant boot, a man halfway up a fence, falling with seventeen holes in his body.

"No." Jean can't remember deciding to speak, but the sound of her own voice calls her back to herself. "Charles Atticus Harris, you are not going to Selma."

"Mother—mother, this is important, you have to—"

"I have to nothing, young man—you don't understand what this is about. It's far too dangerous! You think this is all some great revolution—this is bigger than you, this is how people are. You're not going to change anything by putting yourself at risk, Charlie, it's not worth it."

"But just—"

"You listen now, you're my son and I will not have you risk yourself this way! Other people can take care of this—you're just one person, you're not going to get in the middle of this—this fiasco."

"Mother!"

"Don't you 'mother' me, you—you swear to me, swear to me right now you won't go anywhere near this!" Jean is shouting into the phone, feeling her husband pulling on her arm, vaguely hearing his voice telling her to calm down. "You promise me, Charles, promise me right now."

There's silence on the line, and then her son says, "I can't promise that."

Jean feels something wrenching apart inside her. She tries to focus on the voice on the telephone.

"You have to listen to me, Mother—I have to do this. You know I do, it's because of you that I know what I need to do! It's because of you—you taught me what's right, and you know this is wrong, Mother, you know it!" Charlie's voice is rising with passion. "It's wrong what they're doing in Selma, and it's wrong what they're doing everywhere now! Negroes have got to be full citizens, they've got to be able to vote, we've all got to be able to vote or none of it's worth a darn thing! You have to understand that. You have to, Mother. You know I have to stand up. Even if I don't change a thing, or—or even if I get hurt, I have to try."

Jean is silent. There is nothing left within her, only flashes of light, visions from her memory and the television, all wearing her boy's face.

"Mother? Mother, are you there?"

"I'm here," Jean says numbly. "I—I understand. You—you just call me when you get to Montgomery."

She hears Charlie's reassurances faintly as she hangs up the phone, and turns into her husband's arms. He holds her and strokes her hair, quieting her. Jean lifts her head and sees her daughters peering around the kitchen door.

"Oh, now you get back to bed!" Jean pulls herself out of her husband's arms, taking a deep breath as she bustles towards her girls. "You know you shouldn't be up, get on back to bed now."

"Yes, ma'am," they say in unison, looking not at all guilty about being caught. As Jean leaves them at the door of their room with light swats on the shoulder, the youngest pauses and looks up at her. "Mama, is Charlie all right?"

"Course he is, Scout," Jean says, pulling her little girl into a hug. "He's just fine, don't you worry about him one bit."

Scout clings a second, and Jean revels in it's rarity in these almost-teenage days, but lets go easily enough. Jean shuts the door carefully as the two girls get into bed. Her husband is waiting for her on the couch, frowning as he beckons her to sit down.

"No, turn up the television," Jean whispers as she sits down, "those two are listening from their beds as sure as my name's Jean Louise."

He complies, the frown still on his face. "All right now, you tell me what our boy is up to."

"Oh, he's—he's—Dill, he says he's joining the march to Montgomery." Jean hides her faces in her husband's shoulder a second, then pulls herself up. "And I couldn't say no in the end, I couldn't. He said it was the right thing to do and he had to try, and I'm blessed if I can argue with him." She half-laughs, looking down at her hands.

Dill tilts her face up. "I think he's in the right, Jean." He tries to smile at her, but his forehead is still creased. "He's a man now, 18 and away from home, and this is the task he's chosen. And really, Jean, would you have turned away at that age? Would Jem?"

Jean heaves a sigh. "Jem was already in the army then, halfway to Germany. I just—I was hoping for more for our boy. And it—oh, it scares me so much, Dill, it scares me."

"I know." Dill pulls her head onto his shoulder. "I know, honey. We'll just have to wait here at home and bear it."

Jean leans into him, and thinks.

* * *

Third night camp is more chaotic than Charlie could have imagined before starting this whole crazy journey. There are people everywhere, hundreds of them, filling the giant tents until Charlie feels like a sardine. He's an old hand now, having been with them since the first night even if he wasn't picked to go on the 300 person march across the first stretch of Route 80, and he's helping get some folks from Ohio settled in when he hears his name.

"Charlie! Charlie, I got someone for you!" Nancy's arm is up above the heads of the crowd as she pushes towards him, her wide bracelets jangling about on her wrist.

Charlie grins. Nancy can part a crowd anywhere she goes—her blond hair down to her waist and brightly colored clothing turn heads as much as her piercing voice. "I'm right here, Nance!" he yells back. "You don't have to shout down the tent—"

He cuts off as Nancy comes through the crowd, because the woman she's dragging by the hand is very, very familiar.

"Ma!" he shouts, and catches her up in a big bear hug. "Ma! You're here? What—why are you here? Is Dad here? And the girls? Are you all right?" He sets her down, catching the secret thrill he does every time he realizes he's taller than she is.

She laughs and smooths her dress where he scrunched it up. "No, no, they're back in Maycomb, they're fine, I just—I'm here to join the march, Charlie." She looks up at him, half shy and half fierce. "I'm here to walk with you the rest of the way into Montgomery."

"You're—to join the march? But Ma, I—how did you—what are the girls and Dad doing without you?"

"Well, I'm not that indispensable," his mother laughs. "Your father is staying home from the newspaper office and making the town come to him for a change. Maudie and Scout are happy enough to run his errands and help him set letters—Maudie's talking of studying journalism when she goes off to college now, and see if she doesn't do it, too! And you know Scout—I was just like it at her age, getting into everything all the time."

"Ma," Charlie interrupts gently, "why are you here?"

She sighs, and Charlie blinks as she suddenly seems older. He's never thought of his mother as young, exactly—she's his mother, after all—but he's never really seen the fine lines around her eyes and mouth, either. Standing next to Nancy, who is still holding Jean's wrist and flashing her bright teeth like she's brought the whole march this far by herself, his mother looks like she's in the middle of a long and hard life.

"Can we go outside?" she says gently. "Somewhere quieter?"

"Course we can. I just have to—Nancy, can you take these gentlemen here to the food line and show them where to set up their beds?"

"Sure thing, Charlie," Nancy trills, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. Charlie can feel his face turn beet red, and he doesn't dare look at his mother as he quickly leads her out of the crowd and away from any other dangerous displays of affection.

But other than the amused look he knows she's giving him, she doesn't say a thing. He waits until they're outside the tent completely, under the stars, before looking up from the ground. Her face is in shadow now, and he hopes his face is as indistinct as he says, "So tell me."

She is silent for long seconds, but Charlie stays still. He's learned a thing or two in college about the power of listening, although with a family full of lawyers it's not exactly second nature. But he's learned a little, and he tells himself he can manage this much to show her he's a man now, capable of making decisions and sticking do them.

"I've come to join you, like I said," she says finally.

Charlie lets out a breath explosively. "Ma, you know this isn't a place for women."

"Like your friend in there?" she says dryly, and Charlie can feel his face flushing again.

"Nancy's different and you know it, Ma, I mean this isn't—you've got the girls to think about."

"I am thinking of them." Her voice is low and fierce now, and Charlie suddenly wishes he could see her face. "I'm thinking of teaching them what I somehow managed to teach you—I'm thinking of showing them how to do the right thing even when you know not a blamed thing will come of it, the way somebody showed me once. I'm thinking of showing them how family sticks together. If you're set on doing this, well." She reaches up to touch his face, her hand shaking slightly. "Being here with you is the least I can do."

"Well." Charlie can't think of a thing to say. "Well, I—Listen, mother—I—" He can't help himself any more and pulls her up into a great hug. He whispers in her ear, "I'm awfully glad you're here with me."

She holds on to him tight for a second, then pushes him away. "Well!" she says, giving one sniff and wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands, "Now that's settled, why don't you show me where a lady can get a bite to eat and a place to sleep around here?"

Charlie laughs, feeling something let loose he hadn't even realized was tight. He shrugs off his jacket and wraps it around his mother's shoulders as he leads her back to the tent, a shining beacon of light in the starlit field.

* * *

The last two days have been intense, to put it mildly. Jean has walked and driven and cooked and somehow become mother and confidante to half a dozen of Charlie's college friends. They're good kids, all of them, although she has to try her best to be diplomatic about their music and clothes. (She is fairly certain she will never willingly listen to Bob Dylan.) But on the whole they're easy to take care of, and in return she knows they've protected her from some of the more difficult aspects of eating and sleeping among thousands of others. She knows that without them, her worries about whether she did the right thing by coming to join Charlie would have been much more than stray thoughts.

But today is different. All day the crowd has been swelling, as they slowly make their way through the streets of Montgomery. Jean keeps a tight grip on Charlie's sleeve as they are swept past cars stopped in the middle of the street, angry drivers leaning out the windows. They pass impassive guards on skittish horses. A Negro in the crowd begins to jeer at them, asking where they were last week, calling them ugly names. Jean feels her heart almost stop in her chest, waiting for the guards to sweep forward into the crowd, clubs at the ready. She tries to push away through the crowd but it seems to close in all around her. She feels her breath coming harsher.

"Ma, it's all right!" Charlie grabs her by the shoulders. "Calm down. Look, it's all right." Sure enough, the man's friends have pulled him away and are talking to him earnestly. The guards haven't moved an inch. Jean shivers at their blank stares.

In the crush of the crowd, they've been separated from Charlie's friends. Jean's not exactly worried, not as long as Charlie is right next to her. But as the crowd presses them closer and closer to the front, she feels more alert than she's ever felt in her life. She is barely paying attention to the speaker, mostly caught up in scanning the crowd around them, when the voice of the speaker up at the front cuts through the air and pulls her head around.

"I know you are asking today, how long will it take?"

Jean freezes. People around her are saying, "Speak!" and "Yes, suh!" with rising intensity.

"Somebody's asking, how long will prejudice blind the visions of men?"

"Yes," Jean whispers. She was told injustice had happened before and it would happen it again—but she wants to know when it will stop. It's been so long, long enough that her son has had to stand up against the same bile that struck her so many years ago.

"How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?"

"Yes," Jean says, right out loud, and the people next to her are saying it too, and "How long?" and "Amen!" She doesn't have to look around anymore, she can tell they're all right there together, asking the great man up front, the preacher from Montgomery, to tell them that there will be an end to the injustice they all know.

"It will not be long," he tells them. "Because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long," and the crowd shouts it with him, "because you shall reap what you sow."

And suddenly all her focus is narrowed to a single point as speaker says, "How long? Not long." His voice rings out like a church bell from the front of the crowd, and he says, "Because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

And she gasps, and she clutches at her son's hand, because given to her without any warning is the answer to a question she has been asking all her life. The crowd is blurring around her, a giant mass of happy faces, and she feels buoyant with emotion, tied to earth only by Charlie's hand holding hers as tightly as she is holding his. Together they are swept along until she's crying and laughing and shouting and singing with the rest of the crowd, all together as that great voice rolls out over them, saying, "Glory, hallelujah, His truth goes marching on."

* * *

  
   
Read [posted comments](http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/60/goesmarching_cmt.html).  



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